Nino Ricci’s first novel, Lives of the Saints, won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the SmithBooks/Books in Canada First Novel Award and the F.G. Bressani Prize. It was later made into a motion picture starring Sophia Loren. The novel was followed by the highly acclaimed, In a Glass House, and, Where She Has Gone, which was short-listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. His bestselling novel Testament won the Trillium Book Award. His most recent novel, The Origin of Species, received the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction and the Canadian Authors Association Award for Fiction. Ricci lives in Toronto.

Sleep

Sleep follows David Pace, a man who has it all – a successful career as an almost-famous academic, a wife blessed with both beauty and brains, a young son and a lovely home. But David’s brain has begun to misfire. It shuts off when David is meant to be awake – when he’s writing, when he’s lecturing, when he’s driving – but otherwise denies him any rest at all. Popping a variety of pills at an increasingly alarming rate, David struggles to remain alert, but his efforts become less effective, leaving his family in tatters and his career on the brink. Then, David finds himself with a loaded gun in his hands, and all of a sudden, he feels gloriously awake.

Nino Ricci’s review of RM Vaughn’s Bright Eyed: Insomnia and its Cures

As It Happens: Reflections on the Writing Life